2019 |Born to bind

Busser’s bookstore, Paris

Detail signed by Joëlle Bocel on Touchez-voir, Morina Mongin’s collection of poems (photo © Michèle Garrec).

Born to bind is an exhibition title in a maxim’s form or profession of faith! Morina Mongin, bookbinder and writer, has asked about fifteen French and international bookbinders to dress her two collections, La Tête Or and Touchez-voir, written and published over the past two years. A sort of mise en abyme – a bookbinder has his books bound by other professionals – and withdrawal allowing her both to assert her status as an author and to take a singular look – a wide range of astonishment at the same time admiration – on the perception of her texts by the bookbinders invited to exhibit at Busser’s bookstore. It is fascinating to observe how different craftsmen reproduce the content of the same text, its meaning and its atmosphere, always in harmony with the elegance and delicacy of the author of the works.

 

Marie Akar, Art et Métiers du Livre n°331, mars-avril 2019, p. 15 (excerps).